Karla's Cottage

Great news for Good Juju lovers!

And who wouldn’t love shopping there?  

Beth, The Other Karla, and I went to the Old West Bottoms to shop during the February show. 

As we’d expected, there were valentines galore. 

With a mix of hand crafted items, salvage, restored furniture, and vintage decor. 

I always like the variety. 

And the display inspiration. 

But as great as the place is, it is about to get even better....

Beth has joined the team of fabulous vendors!  You can find her on the first floor starting on the first Friday of March.   You’ll know what booth it is, by the crowd of thrilled bargain hunters filling their arms with cool vintage goodies!

Good luck, Beth!   I’m excited for you. 

https://www.goodjujukc.com/

Valentine shopping bags by Maggie

My talented pal, Maggie Raguse (and Birdsong Peep), has once again, designed some adorable shopping bags for Kroger.   In our area, Dillons stores are the local Kroger franchise.  If you are looking for one of these cuties, look up what the chain is called in your area. 

Then, you’d better rush to get one, because they sell out quickly!  They are very sturdy too, I used the Christmas versions in place of paper gift bags for presents. 

 

Goofing around with friends

TheOtherKarla, Beth, and I had a fun afternoon at the Old West Bottoms antique district. I didn't buy anything, but Karla, who isn't a junker found a few things.

Even without buying  much, we still had lots of laughs and a lively time.  Beth and I thought this walkway under the bridge was a gorgeous photo op, Karla didn't quite agree, but indulged us. See the people in the distance? They were there for a while, doing photos, with the young girl leaping into the air and posing quite prettily. I enjoyed watching them.

And insisted on doing it myself. 

Not as prettily though.

And I didn't achieve much air.

While we had plenty of goofiness, I think that we ended up with a couple of nice pics too. The structure was a cool backdrop.

As we left, we saw a gaggle of dapper guys in suits headed over for a photo shoot too.  I wonder if this area is a well known KC spot to pose?  

 

The Plaza Lights- from a very special viewing point

Our pal, Angie lives in an apartment overlooking the KC Plaza with a glorious view of the holiday lights.

The view inside is pretty dang great too. Angie arranged a delectable feast of loveliness for us after a day out together, lunching, shopping, and laughing. 

The city looked magical from her window.

It was a day filled with pretty things.  

And fun photo ops.

With some silliness thrown in.

I wore my favorite, new Santa shirt (AGAIN, it seems to be my uniform for December along with my decade old, red velvet coat), and found a set of placemats to match it.  But since they cost more than the shirt did, I didn't buy them.  Actually, besides lunch, and a bag of old fashioned, hard candies, I didn't do much purchasing. Just browsing and enjoying the over the top, holiday displays the stores had out.

We went to the Kaufman center to see the trees and flowers, which are a major mood enhancer this time of year.  When the Kansas landscapes are grey, brown, dreary, and dead, it is heartening to see flowers in bloom. I bent over and got some deep whiffs from the pots of white stock and the sweetness of the blooming plants really made me happy inside.

I'm rarely a red or green person, and don't decorate my home in these colors for the season, but I do love pops of these festive shades in jewelry or clothing in December.  So, I made myself some silver earrings with red and green semi-precious gemstones. While I was at it, I made enough to pass out to friends too, and took some to lunch that day for Beth, Karla, and Angie to choose from.

In the past, I've painted ornaments as little gifties for friends, and it was nice to see that Angie has some of them on her sparkling tree.

Her home is perfectly coordinated, and she has such a gentle touch with decorating, it is always an honor to see something I'd made in her home.

She crafted gift bags filled with everything we'd need for a winter's night of relaxation at home. (Wine, chocolate, and a good book!) and topped the package with this sweet collaged image. 

It was a special day, ending with an even more special evening. I'm blessed to  have good friends who could take a day off to simply enjoy the season with me. 

 

 

Elfing around with pinecone pixies

My pal, Tami, once again invited a group of local Peeps to her lovely home for a holiday crafting day. She is always generous with supplies and ideas to share with friends.  This time, we were elfing around and making pinecone pixies.

Here are a few of the ones that I made. She provided a basket full of pine cones, and plenty of felt, along with the little wooden balls for heads and other tidbits to put together.

I'd brought this chunk of firewood, deer, and tree to make this display.  

But this character looks more like a Yorkie than Santa's helper, doesn't he?

See what I mean?

Or maybe more like this?

We had a holly jolly time making these, and soon the room was filled with the fun lil guys.

It was hard to stop, even though all of mine didn't turn out as good as I would've liked. This poor sprite looks like she has smoker's wrinkles around her mouth where the ink ran. I can almost hear her throaty voice saying, Ho HO, Ho, between coughs....

Her sis turned out a little better. She is sitting on a spool.

Tami's halls were decked, her home is always so tastefully and vintagely festive.  I do not know why I didn't get more pictures, dang it.  But at least I took this pic, look at this unique and fashionable tree.

Between eating a yummy, pitch in lunch and assembling elves, we also worked on a few other projects.  There were some butter pat plates available to work with.

I'm afraid my finished product is rather plain, but the plate itself was so simply sweet, I wanted to keep it pretty much as is.

 

I also made a little doggie ornie.

And a bottle brush tree snowflake too.

With all of the laughter, warm conversations, and of course- treat snacking, I don't know how I managed to get so many things made.  

What a nice day! Thanks, Tami!!

On the way to the wedding, a wonderful side trip!

When we went to The Other Karla's son's wedding, Beth and I made a stop in Des Moines to visit some of our Birdsong Peeps and have a crafting sleepover at a rustic, charming, and cozy, Airbnb barn.  Our Peep, Nora, generously made up kits of felted wool for us to create these fab trees.

Beth and I sorta crashed their party, they'd made plans to go up to the flea market and stay at this charmer, and we asked to be included.  They graciously let us stay with them. This was our room.

It had a uniquely curved, metal ceiling.

Okay, I'm going to have to use "charming" again, because that is what the whole place was.

We missed the dinner they shared, but were there for the tasty, overnight oatmeal breakfast.

Our dinner was at an Iowan diner where we had the local special, loosemeats.

After a night of laughing and crafting, we headed out for the Junk Jubilee.

And it was so festive!!! I loved the holiday decor everywhere.  I thought this would be an ideal spot to get a selfie to show the room and the cute display at the entrance, but as you can see, our heads block most of it.  

I think I could use a selfie lesson.

Overall, I sincerely think this is one of the best fleas I've been to, pricewise. It was also set up with gorgeous displays, the dealers made major efforts to have enticing booths.

Plus we ran into Peeps everywhere! (don't ask me why I don't have photos of them, pure carelessness, I guess- too busy hugging and being happy to see old friends to remember my camera!)

Thank you Tami, Gail, and Nora for your hospitality, and thanks Beth, for hauling me along on your trip. It was a raucous roadtrip.  At our age, we don't get enough of those.

Christmas tag books in the Boutique and a sweet wedding, at the BEST weekend

I'm still enjoying the bounty of paint pours from my creative binge this summer and am now using the pieces to make holiday tag books.

You can purchase them HERE, in the Boutique.

I seriously adore the technique and the look of the swirled paints.  Acrylic flow painting is the BEST!

I'd gone with Beth to attend the wedding of The Other Karla's son in St Paul and brought crafty goods (including these painted tags) with me to play with in the hotel room, then found a bounty of beauties at a flea market on the way there. 

Once I got started on making these, I couldn't stop. I was a bad friend and sent Beth out on her own to have lunch with her Minnesota nieces while I stayed in my jammies and made book after book after book that day, till it was time to get ready for the wedding.

Because- WOW- look at this paper I'd found!!!!!  How could I leave it uncut, when I had all of these pretty, painted tags to make things with????

I'd also bought 1928-29 women's magazines from December with lots of helpful Christmas tips, along with an old book of hymms that included Christmas carols.

And stacks of holiday ephemera.

And did I mention that it was 13 degrees outside? And I'd driven through mini blizzards to get there.  Yes, I was content to do hotel crafting in my jim jams and had a beautiful, wonderful, magical day.

It was the BEST.

Not only did I have a fab night with friends, then a day at a flea market on the way to the wedding, I had an entire day with the most magical of vintage supplies, topped off with a night of dancing and laughing til my sides hurt at the wedding.

Or did my sides hurt because I was way to old to dance that hard and that long?

Either way, it was a perfect weekend.  Laughter, road trips, making things, attending a lovely wedding.  Yep, the BEST.

I had never met Karla's son, but soon realized he was a catch.  His wife won my heart quickly too, when she told us about the family tradition of using this vintage cake topper.

Karla made ribbon wands that were waved in the air when the couple entered the reception, and soon we were all dancing and waving them around out on the floor.  Not only were they pretty to see flying about, but they had magical properties.

When we twirled them about, we were FANTASTIC  dancers. We were the BEST.

And personally, I can't dance and have less rhythm than, well, I can't actually think of anything or anyone with less skill on the dance floor than I have.

Between the laughing and the ribbon wands, my dancing skills suddenly became amazing.  Everyone's did. 

Yep, it was the BEST.

 

 

Karen's (Daisy) Book

Back in August, Karen gathered a group of us together for a getaway and shopping, then the group came to my house to try their hands at pour painting. This book cover is Karen's creation from the day.

My painting friends were visiting from Florida, and the paint takes 3 weeks to cure completely, since it is so heavily applied and has conditioners in it.  So, I kept the pieces here to dry, and mailed them later. 

But before I did, I put this book together for her, and another for Guncle Randy. Both were empty covers that they'd painted.

And since I LOOOOOOVE making books, I couldn't help giving her a head start on her pages.

About half are blank, and I added some vintage wallpaper, lace and embellishments to the rest.  Now, she has some backgrounds ready to add her own art, or poetry to.

My Special K, as I call her, loves Gatsby.  And identifies with Daisy.  So, I made sure there were plenty of daisies in the book for her.

She has a lovely poodle, Queen Satine, so when I saw these rhinestone poodles, I knew they had to be a part of the book too.

It is a joy to use these papers, I hope Karen loves working with them too.

Her cover turned out so sweetly, I wanted to honor it with an equally sweet interior.

Thank you for hosting our group for the flea market getaway and for coming to play with paint with me, Karen!!

And if any of you want to make a book with the two of us, I'll be teaching a class at her studio in Deland, Florida in February.  Details to come...

I will be away from my desk, enjoying Sister Time in Florida til the 22nd.  All orders from the Boutique will ship on the 24th. Thanks! 

Crown Crafting with the Crew

Besides junking, sipping wine, sitting by a bonfire, playing with piglets, and eating too much like I was a piglet myself (thanks for the great food, Tracy!!), we did some crafting on Labor Day weekend when i was with my buddies at the hunting cabin.

Royal Style!

Tami brought enough supplies to top off the entire British monarchy.

And we loved every bit and bauble she brought.

Here is a Gatsby-esque one that she gifted to Karen.

And here is a heart shaped, nature inspired, Fairy Crown that I made for Sugarwings.

She placed it on our lamp when she took it off, I kind of like it there.

This is the woodland example that Tami brought.

Angie is modelling the Ice Queen crown.

I made one similar to it.

I'm also creating a Raven crown, from a beaded flapper dress I found at a flea market. It is still in progress, I'm thinking it will require some black feathers and maybe even a feathery bird. I'll be wearing it with my raven dress to a fairyland ball that my sis, Terry, is throwing next summer. It is never too early to plan ahead, is it? This will be a big occasion, so Guncle Randy and I both worked on our headpieces.

Here is the beginning of the base of his. He ringed it with more stones, and we aged it with two colors of Rub-n-buff when we got home. 

He will also add vines and sprigs to fairy it up.

They all looked great together.

Thanks for the beautiful project, Tami!  

(I only wish we'd thought of posing some of these onto the mounted deer and turkeys around the house!)

I will be away from my desk, enjoying Sister Time in Florida til the 22nd.  All orders from the Boutique will ship on the 24th. Thanks! 

Grouting Day

My pal, Shanna, has a group of friends most Thursdays for mosaic projects. I usually bring something else to work on, since I'm not a glass artist, but this time, I did take her up on an offer to dip into the piles of cut glass she had for me to use.

I thought that a mosaic frame would look nice on this beach painting.

Shanna also helps with grouting, and there were a couple of other projects that needed finished that day.  This is Margie's table to donate to a fundraiser.

And a mirror that she did. I called it Boho Gothic.

Thanks, Shan!